I am a painter working in pastels, with some oils, and acrylics. I sketch in pen and ink. As an artist my original paintings are influenced from living in Texas, New Mexico, Arizona, Colorado, Bolivia, Peru and Chile, and travels throughout much of Canada and all our fifty States.
This is my spot for posting paintings and sketches, to muse mostly about art, life and a little about UT Baseball.

Exhibits

Sunday, July 20, 2008

Art brings joy

There is an interesting article, Art Brings Joy To The Artist, Too, in the Albuquerque Journal here, today by Jim Belshaw. (It says the article is free, I hope the link works. ) It is about Peggy Zuris, a 52 year old plein air artist that is just entered Hospice. She is a colorist.

The author, Belshaw, said,

"Artists perform a sleight of hand (a sleight of eye?)that I don't pretend to understand. A long time ago in my checkered career it was my job to edit art reviews , and I came away from it thinking that quite a few self-styled art "critics" didn't understand it, either. But they had a way of writing in great, looping circles that made you think they understood. (They were in fact, artists in their own right, creators of a kind of barnyard oeuvre.)

As for me, I am a rank amateur. I look at a painting, step up as close to it as I can so I can see the brush strokes, see where the hand pressed to make a point or leave only a suggestion of one, and then step back with a question: "How did she do that? What did she see that I didn't."

Here is a Zuris quote from the article,

"I love colors," she said. "For a while back in the '80s I fought depression, and then I saw a show on really bright paintings, and I wanted to capture that. I wanted to capture the color. It's the first thing you see in a painting, and then the images and shapes. But I love color. God created it, and I like to use it to tell a story, to create a mood. I use it to tell the viewer how I feel about a project."

The article ends:

"Regardless of the circumstances, the sleight of hand continues, the artistry I will never understand. It produces colors and images I don't see until they leave her hand and appear on the canvas before her. As I said, artists have always appeared to be magicians from where I sit. "Brush strokes are like a journey, my journey" she said. "I like paintings where you can see the brush strokes, see where the thought came from, see where it's going. The chemo takes energy, but I need to paint. I need to get friends together and paint. It's a gift from God. It's a gift to create."

No comments:

About Me

I Grew up in a small town , Magdalena, New Mexico. I enjoy art and the pleasure other people get from my work. I always donate some of my sales and art to charities, especially for children. That started in Bolivia with Para los Niños. (Link on sidebar)
"I cannot pretend to feel impartial about colors. I rejoice with the brilliant ones and am genuinely sorry for the poor browns." --
Winston Churchill

Subscribe to Jo's Occasional Newsletter

E-mail Notice of New Blog Posts

Your email address:

Jo's Notes

If you want to look at the art without all the chatter please visit my website, jocastilloart.com

I label my posts here so if you are looking for ART you can find it easily and you can skip the few posts about family or baseball. :) You can search my blog in the search box, top left. The category labels are at the very bottom under the posts. I hope you come back soon and join in on the discussion and learning about art .. oh and UT baseball. It's all for fun.